Pillgwenlly C.P. School, Newport

Pillgwenlly C.P. School is an English-medium school in Wales. Welsh schools are inspected by Estyn rather than Ofsted, and its latest report is published on Estyn's website.

It had 724 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

37% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 9% have additional learning needs (37% in 2020/21); 77% are learning English as an additional language; and 88% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 82 pupils (Reception) to 95 (Year 1).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £5,521 per pupil, against £3,705 in 2021-22. It carried forward £143k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its April 2023 inspection summarises Pillgwenlly C.P. School like this:

"Pupils at Pillgwenlly Primary School are polite, friendly, and caring. They are eager to learn, work with others effectively and enjoy taking on leadership roles. They show a good awareness of important issues, such as equality, sustainability, and the importance of valuing others, but are not always clear about the importance of eating healthily. The school is a vibrant, multi-cultural learning environment that gives pupils a broad range of engaging learning experiences. This helps to ensure that pupils make effective progress in areas, such as their speaking and listening, and information and communication technology (ICT) skills. However, pupils’ progress in mathematics and writing is not as good."

"Alongside its multi-cultural ethos, the school values its Welsh culture and language, incorporating it into the curriculum to develop pupils' understanding well. Teachers develop positive and supportive relationships with pupils and consider their ideas carefully when planning learning. However, teachers do not always provide learning that challenges pupils to develop their skills well enough, nor provide pupils with helpful enough feedback to support their learning. The school provides effective support for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN), and for those with English as an additional language. A dedicated team assists teachers to identify pupils’ individual needs and provide them with targeted help. Pupils in the local authority’s learning support class, and those in the school’s own bespoke support classes are supported well and make good progress in their learning."

"While arrangements to keep pupils safe are suitable, the school does not have a strong enough safeguarding culture. There have been significant changes to the school’s leadership in recent years. Leaders have developed a clear vision for the school, based around their 'BRIDGE’ curriculum and an approach to teaching that provides pupils with useful opportunities to develop their independence. However, leaders do not evaluate, or plan for improvements in, pupils’ learning well enough. The school provides staff with useful professional learning opportunities. However, a minority of staff do not feel part of the school’s improvement journey."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Address the issues relating to safeguarding identified at the time of the inspection; (2) Sharpen evaluation and improvement processes so that they focus better, and impact more positively, on pupils’ learning; (3) Improve pupils’ writing and their mathematical skills; (4) Ensure that teachers provide pupils with challenging learning experiences more consistently and give them regular and helpful feedback on their learning.

Estyn follow-up status: Significant Improvement.

The nearest other state primary schools to Pillgwenlly C.P. School are St Michael's R.C. Primary School (0.1 miles), Ysgol Gymraeg Nant Gwenlli (0.3 miles), St Woolos Primary School (0.8 miles) and Maesglas C.P. School (0.8 miles).

The nearest railway station is Newport (S Wales) Rail Station, about 1 mile away in a straight line.

9 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Jeddo Close (opposite), 70 metres away.